No Rest for the Weary
by RenoXanders
Summary: This summary is no good, I didn't really know how best to describe this one. The Promethean planet, Genesis may indeed prove to be a worthy adversary. Just a short mini-story with John and Cortana that randomly came to me. Again, I kind of enjoy being mean to heroes...


Rain patters softly on a golden helmet visor. Water runs in rivulets off the scratched and dented olive drab armor. Smoke rises from twisted metal debris all around the armored figure on the ground.

Awareness slowly trickles back into John's mind as the tittering of rain on his visor greets his ears. As his eyes slowly blink open he takes a deep breath into his lungs, expanding his aching chest. John lets out a soft groan and his HUD flickers to life. It scrolls a brief readout of his bios and the status of his power armor. Both are green. His chronograph flashes '_loss of consciousness. Suit systems shut down to conserve power. Time unconscious: 4 hr 45 min 53 sec._' He purses his lips with a sigh through his nose.

John now gains awareness of his position. Apparently ejected through the shattered windshield of the pelican upon crashing, he lays about 45 meters from the ship. His body came to rest on his left side, legs slightly bent and arms stretched out in front of him. His head tilted just enough that the gentle rain fell on his visor. Slowly, he starts to move his stiff body, starting by clenching his fists and shifting his position to lay flat on his back. He sighs softly. "Cortana?" he rasps, then coughs a little.

"Ah, welcome back, John." The gentle voice of his AI comes in softly through his helmet speakers.

"Why didn't you wake me sooner? My chronometer tells me I lost consciousness over four hours ago." John's voice has a bit of an edge to it.

"It was a pretty rough crash, John. I-"

John cuts her off, "You always wake me. Why didn't you?"

Cortana counters, "You were _ejected _from the cockpit. I didn't think it wise to rouse you from unconsciousness yet."

"I have been in much worse than this, that's not an excuse." He sits up and shoves a smoldering and splintered tree branch as big around as his own thigh off of his legs. "It hasn't stopped you before. _Why_didn't you wake me?" He asks again, his gravelly baritone stern. He furrows his brow, staring intently at the top left corner of his HUD where the AI renders her avatar.

The AI simulates a sigh through his helmet speakers and renders her face in the corner where the Master Chief is glaring sternly, her expression apologetic. She glances down for a moment before looking into John's unnaturally blue eyes. "You have been going without sleep for a solid 96 hours, John."

John raises an eyebrow, "And?" his voice is deadpan, effectively conveying the fact that he clearly sees no problem with not sleeping for 96 hours straight.

Cortana visibly droops in irritation, "And that is very unhealthy for you. Spartan or not, you _need _sleep, John."

John tilts his head incredulously, staring at the little avatar of Cortana with a disagreable expression.

Cortana continues, "Your judgment was becoming questionable as we descended into _Genesis' _atmosphere. Your spatial awareness was deteriorating rapidly. When the Prometheans scrambled the two Covenant Remnant Phantoms hidden in the forest canopy when we entered the nearby airspace, they were able to easily ambush us because you _insisted_on flying yourself. After you stalled the Pelican a total of _four_times during the dogfight, which, may I remind you, you have _never done before_, I took over. I subsequently lost control of the Pelican after a few solid plasma hits to the engines that I could not avoid, not thirty seconds later. As we fell, you managed to take down one of the Phantoms with the laser and archer missiles, but we had lost so much altitude, we hit the canopy and fell the remaining 114 meters to the ground. You lost consciousness when we hit a huge branch at about 70 meters and the impact of it slammed you head first into the instrument panel." She finishes matter-of-factly. Cortana simulates a heavy sigh and John could tell she crossed her arms in exasperation.

John furrows his brow at the little woman in the top left corner of his HUD. After a few beats, "How many times did you practice _that _speech?"

Her delicate brows arch, "Only twice."

John takes a long deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. He rolls his eyes just to spite her.

"You're welcome, John." She says amicably.

John scoffs at the AI, a cheeky smirk on his face, "Whatever, I'm calling your bluff. You're _still _worried about me."

Cortana looks hard at him. "Fine."

"Fine." John replies quickly with a stern expression. Then he smiles.

Cortana chuckles, "Oh you're really something, John." She smiles back at him. "At least promise me that you will sleep tonight?"

John draws a deep breath and struggles to hold back a yawn. He ultimately fails and yawns widely.

"Uh-huh, that's what I thought. We are calling off this mission. I'm hailing the _Infinity._"

"No no no! It- ugh." John sighs heavily. "Just, wait."

Cortana tilts her head expectantly at John.

"Let me get this done, I'll be fast I promise. You have permission to do whatever necessary to keep me awake if the situation calls for it. Deal?" John arches his eyebrows at the AI hopefully.

Cortana heaves a great, exasperated sigh. "Fine." John's expression is thankful and she smiles at him quickly before continuing. "Ok, the building we are going to recon is here," a marker pops up on John's HUD with a distance of 2,095 meters, deep in the thick vegetation. "Let's assess our situation. The Pelican is scrap, so, good thing the _Infinity _is in orbit to send us a ride after we do our recon. Thankfully, it looks like a few of the weapon crates survived largely undamaged. There's a magnum and a battle rifle over to your left. Spare clips in the crate nearby." A marker pops up on his HUD, indicating the weapons locations, as well as extra ammunition. "I'm detecting Promethean activity a few clicks to the east of our position, so let's get moving, Chief."

"Ten-four." John rumbles with a smile, getting to his feet and walking over to pick up the magnum. He slides open the breach to see if it's loaded, which it is not. He ejects the clip into his waiting hand and makes sure it's full. All fifteen rounds are there so he slams the clip back into the pistol and holsters it as he steps over to the crate to grab a few extra clips for it and the battle rifle. He sees 36 on the display, indicating that the weapon is fully loaded and he slings it over his back onto the magnetic holster. He takes a few steps and spots another magnum, which he grabs and checks; it's fully loaded as well so he keeps it at the ready as he walks away from the crashed Pelican and deeper into the forest.

John makes his way through the green, damp understory, quietly scanning his surroundings and listening for any sounds that are not of the forest. His destination is now 1,750 meters ahead and still fully obscured by the thick, ancient rainforest vegetation.

A twig snaps and brush rustles to his left. In the very same millisecond John has his magnum raised, cocked and aiming in the precise direction from which the sounds emanated. He slowly lowers to a crouch, steadying his aim against his pounding pulse, and waits. The brush rustles and shivers and John takes a few cautious steps back into a large tree, pistol trained on the trembling leaves.

Just as John steadies his breathing, a large deer steps calmly out of the bush and John's bloodstream is once again flooded with a jolt of adrenaline. He takes deliberately slow breaths as the deer walks right over to him. John watches in amazement, ever so slowly lowering the pistol in his right hand to his side so as to not startle the innocent creature.

"She's beautiful, isn't she, John?" Cortana whispers softly in John's ear.

"Mmhm," he breathes as the deer timidly stretches its head out to sniff John's gold visor. The deer's warm breath fogs briefly on his faceplate and John smiles as the creature tilts it head and lets out a snort, her ears swiveling and twitching all about. She moves now to sniff around the rest of this strange new object in her territory. John very slowly moves his empty left hand out to her face and the deer sniffs it, then nudges his palm with her nose.

Taking a deep breath, John runs his hand over the deer's cheek, neck and side through the dark, rusty-brown fur. He lets out an awed vocalization as the deer leans in to his touch for a moment. He moves his hand back up and scratches under her chin for a moment, then she shakes off some of the rainwater from her fur. Her ears continue to move around, constantly listening to the sounds of the forest.

The deer looks directly into the golden visor for a moment, leans in close, sniffs then snorts at the visor, shakes her head and turns around, calmly walking around John into the brush behind him.

"Well, that was interesting." Cortana muses.

John blinks a few times, "Yeah. It was," he agrees. He stands and raises his pistol back to the ready position and continues towards the waypoint on his HUD.

John's HUD indicates that the building is now only 20 meters ahead. And he can now make out an overgrown silhouette of clearly Forerunner construction.

"Scanning," Cortana states. "Wait for it, got it. Door is over here, there's an access terminal."

John sprints over to the door and pulls the chip containing Cortana from his neural interface port on the back of his helmet and inserts the small chip into the terminal. There are only a few seconds of silence before the whir and rumble of the doors opening breaks the silence.

"Alright, John. Yank me." Cortana says, a smirk in her voice and John pulls the chip, replacing it in his helmet. The familiar wash of cool across his brain announces her return. "Alright, let's go." She says softly and John enters cautiously through the door, Magnum at the ready. He systematically clears each hallway of the relatively small building. Eventually he comes to the center of the building which he has determined is a geometrically arranged honeycomb like pattern of halls and rooms encircling a large and empty central room.

"This would make an ideal base camp to operate out of while we search the surrounding forest for the Genesis chamber the Librarian told us about. It should be nearby, the coordinates align with this center room." Cortana says softly into Johns helmet.

"So within a 10 mile radius from here." He clarifies.

"Yes. Ok I think we ought to go while the going's good, John. Hailing the _Infinity._UNSC _Infinity _this is UNSC AI Cortana,requesting a Pelican for evac at embedded coordinates."

A reply comes through John's helmet speakers a few moments later, {"_Good Copy Cortana, this is Captain Lasky, I'm dropping a Pelican now. Eta is fifteen minutes._"}

"Roger that, Captain. See you in thirty five minutes." John rumbles over the com link before terminating the connection. He walks over to a nearby wall and puts his back to it, sliding down to sit. His legs slide out in front of him and he crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his chin in against his chest plate he closes his eyes. "Wake me up in ten minutes." He says softly, eyes fluttering shut.

"John, I've got contacts."

John grunts softly and shifts a little, letting out a sigh.

"John? Wake up. Prometheans are closing on our position." Cortana states with a little more urgency. Still, John continues to sleep. Panic starts to set in for Cortana as she watches the red blips on the radar close the distance to from a kilometer to a half kilometer. Cortana pulls up John's biosigns; _Heart rate 40 beats per minute, respiration 14, neurological activity: delta waves._ '_Damn it, he is already in stage four sleep. Nothing short of a direct lightning strike is gonna wake him._' Cortana huffs to herself. It's only been nine minutes since the Spartan fell asleep, but he has been so sleep deprived, his brain is cycling through the sleep stages at a much greater frequency. The past four days of fighting Prometheans and Remnant Covenant through the surrounding space around Genesis has not really afforded John the time for sleep, and now it has most certainly caught up with him.

Cortana looks at the radar. The Prometheans are only 70 meters out now and it's been ten minutes since Cortana made the call to _Infinity. _

Static in the com, Cortana immediately answers the ping, "UNSC AI Cortana, Identify."

"_UNSC G79H-TC/MA-Kilo-five-seven, reporting approach on coordinates and contact with some tangos, Copy?_"

"Good copy, Kilo five seven. Tangos acknowledged; I've been watching them close in for three minutes. Be aware, Master Chief has lost consciousness and I cannot wake him. Here's to hoping you brought your strongest along. Otherwise you've got a half ton of dead weight I can't help you carry."

A laugh comes over the com, "_Acknowledged that Sierra one one seven is catchin' zee's. No worries, Cortana. We're Marines, we can handle it. Besides, this baby's got a wench, and not the busty, rum-soaked kind either_._And we brought a few muscles too just to be safe."_

Now it's Cortana's turn to chuckle a bit. There's never a dull moment when it comes to Marines. "Alright, Kilo five seven, stay sharp."

"_Roger that._"

Cortana hears a few explosions and the rhythm of a Gatling gun belching out thousands of rounds per minute. 'Well, the Cavalry's arrived.'

"_Three minutes out. We're comin' in pretty hot. Clearing a path…_"

Cortana simulates a deep sigh, "John?" She ventures again in a stern and rather loud voice. The Spartan doesn't even twitch. She slumps. "John!" she yells. Still nothing.

A sudden explosion jolts her back to reality. Her radar shows three crawlers making a beeline to their location, the door was breached; time is very short now. "John, you have to wake up. John, please!" She can hear the clatter of the crawler's metallic claws on the floor just outside the room. "JOHN!" She screams as the first crawler turns the corner and spots John's slumped form. Cortana is panicking as the creature sprints towards them. "Kilo five seven! We are under attack! John is still not responding! Please hurry!" Cortana practically yells into the com as two more alpha crawlers scamper into the room. All three open fire on John.

As if on cue, a light blue and steely dark blue Mjolnir-clad Spartan-IV turns the corner and takes out the last two crawlers to enter the room with quick shots from their magnum. The first crawler turns and fires upon the Spartan -IV, who executes a quick dodge, firing a single, well aimed round into the crawler's head area, destroying it. Immediately after, the Spartan-IV sprints to John's side and lifts him in a fireman's carry. Two more Spartan-IVs walk in, battle rifles drawn, scanning the room quickly before waving the first Spartan-IV to follow out the door, the second taking up the rear. The Spartans sprint through the halls, clearing the few random crawlers that find them and in under a minute they are sprinting through the open to the hovering Pelican. The first Spartan-IV jumps onboard and turns around to take John. The other two follow shortly and the pelican roars off through the canopy and back towards the _Infinity._

The blue Spartan-IV takes off their helmet, revealing a fiery red-headed young woman. "Tedra Grant. It's an honor to at last meet the Legendary Sierra -117 and Cortana, even though one half is asleep." She says with a smile, her Scottish accent thick.

Cortana replies through John's external speakers, "I assure you, we're flattered. Thanks for being on time back there. His shields had been fully drained by the time you killed the second crawler."

She makes a somewhat scared expression. "Sorry about those nasties, we opened the door and they teleported right in front of us. So, is he gonna be alright? He didn't come to at all, through, like, everything. Even getting shot." Her face is deeply concerned now.

Cortana takes a moment to glance at John's steady biosigns before she sends a direct feed right to Tedra's helmet. "He should be. Take a look at your HUD."

Tedra's delicate eyebrows arch a little in curiosity as she puts her helmet back on. Scrolling across the bottom right hand side of her HUD she has a real-time read out of John's biosigns. She takes a moment to analyze them before looking back at John, "he looks like he's just sleeping." She says, her tone a bit confused.

Cortana chuckles, they must not have filled the Spartans in on the details, just told them they were doing a hot extraction of an unconscious John-117 from a Promethean patrolled area. The reason behind his loss of consciousness was omitted. "That's because he is." She replies gently. "He has been going full out without sleep for the past 96 hours. He passed out after we cleared the room you found us in. He just sat down and told me to wake him in ten minutes. We came under attack after nine, and I tried to wake him, but he was already in stage four delta wave sleep. Pretty much nothing can wake him from that."

Tedra laughs, "I know a few people like that." She grins and elbows the dark-skinned Spartan beside her, "Eh, Hoya?" she quips and he shoves her off.

"Hey, stow it Red! At least I don't snore!" Carlo Hoya retorts, meriting a solid punch from the red-head.

"You guys are a lively bunch, that's for sure." Cortana admits aloud to them and Gabriel Thorne replies with a hearty laugh.

"They're all flapping jaws, these boys, honestly." Tedra says, taking off her helmet again. "I'm usually the quiet one, but I just had to say something to you. We've heard so many great things, and to finally get to meet the Spartan behind it all…"

"Uh-oh!" Thorne teases.

"Better watch out, Cortana! You've got a fan girl on your six!" Hoya warns playfully.

The cabin is full of their rowdy laughter and joking remarks which slowly fade off into quiet as the journey reaches the nine minute mark.

Cortana has taken to silently watching John's steady EKG while she runs a few idle processes to pass the remaining few minutes till they arrive on the _Infinity._

The _Infinity _opens a hangar bay for the Pelican and the ship lands, greeted immediately by a large medical response team and Spartan technicians there to oversee the removal of John's armor. The teams all work seamlessly together to get John onto the gurney and rushed via emergency transport to the medical wing.

Upon arriving at the Medical Bay, Cortana requests that she be inserted to the med-wing terminal so that she may oversee. The technician nearest to John's head removes her chip and plugs her into the terminal. Her avatar immediately renders at the holotank beside John, where she watches as his armor is removed and he is connected to an EKG and given an IV of saline for hydration. Five minutes after all but the head doctor has left, John takes a deeper breath, shifting slightly. His pulse quickens slightly and his eyes slowly open. Cortana is instantly at his side, projecting a hard-light avatar beside the bed. Her expression is gentle, loving, but also hinting at irritated.

"Hey Cortana." He says softly, his baritone gravelly. "What's with all this?" he indicates the 12-lead EKG and IV in his right arm with an incredulous expression.

"Must be a doctor thing." She replies jokingly, then she grows serious again, "The IV is for hydration. The EKG is so that _everyone else _knows you're still alive." She chuckles. And he smiles.

"So I'm assuming you couldn't wake me up."

"No. You're never going more than a day without sleep, ever again. I won't allow it. Understand? You nearly got yourself killed."

"Oh. Ok." John says with a yawn. "Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to continue sleeping."

Cortana smiles and puts a reassuring hand on John's chest. The EKG immediately blares a warning as the electrodes pick up her electrical current and go haywire. "Oops." She quickly withdraws her hand. "I'll be up here." She says, appearing in a cross-legged position back in the holotank beside John.

John grunts his approval, closing his eyes and quickly falling back to sleep.

~end~


End file.
